The Shrine of the Book E-thriller

The Shrine of the Book houses the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Alleppo Codex. From the outside the Shrine looks like the lid of a clay jar -- like the ones many of the scrolls were found in. The display case pictured above is in the form of an ancient scroll.

The colors and shapes of the building are based on the imagery of the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness; the white dome symbolizes the Sons of Light and the black wall symbolizes the Sons of Darkness.

Dead Sea Scroll

The first of the 2,000 year old scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a young Bedouin shepherd. From the eleven caves around the Qumran area scholars have recovered the manuscripts of almost 700 works, both Biblical and sectarian. Some of the works are complete scrolls, while others are only fragments containing a few sentences.

The most prized exhibits at the Shrine are the two oldest copies of the book of Isaiah in existence. These Isaiah scrolls are 1,000 years older than any other known Hebrew Biblical text.